Because researchers are committed to spoiling any and all manifestations of fun, new research has come to light suggesting that knowing how a story ends may not actually damage our enjoyment of it. One of three versions of several short stories, (two with a paragraph that revealed essential plot details and a third unaltered version) were given to the participants. The results showed that people who had had the story spoilt for them rated the stories higher.
So not only are spoilers apparently not harmful, they’re actually better for your enjoyment? This is precisely the opposite of what most people feel about hearing plot details before they’re revealed to them. Drop a spoiler in polite conversation and you expect to see someone boil with rage and hit you square in the chin. They’ll at least put two hands over their ears and drown out your spiteful words with an enthusiastic chorus of ‘La-La-La-La’s. So, is there something to this, or are these researchers simply too used to spoiling their conclusions because they’re forced to write abstracts ?
Why Spoilers May Not Ruin Experiences
A close friend of mine is immune to spoilers. Quite how she manages this is beyond me: personally, knowing exactly where a plot is heading ruins the fun. Reading a list of spoilers in preparation for this article would have been like having my parents tell me the contents of each and every present under the tree, if I hadn’t already heard most of them elsewhere. That in itself is significant: spoilers do have a certain pull to them. But so do black holes. And when I’ve read about a twist, my interest in a plot becomes inevitably stretched.









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